


Omission (Or Five Times Sarah Jane Lied)

by nice_girls_play



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-29
Updated: 2011-01-29
Packaged: 2017-10-15 05:15:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/157404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nice_girls_play/pseuds/nice_girls_play
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sarah Jane Smith never lies. She simply omits a few key truths.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Omission (Or Five Times Sarah Jane Lied)

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers (in no particular order) for _The Time Warrior_ , _Hand of Fear_ , _School Reunion_ and _SJA: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?_ One character plotline was loosely inspired by Erisinia's [His Sarah Jane](http://www.whofic.com/viewstory.php?sid=13944) which every needs to read.

\--

**  
1965   
**

She tells Aunt Lavinia she's fine.

She's perfectly happy in the public school she makes her go to. Perfectly happy with the itchy uniform, her scalp aching from the high pony tail she has to wear.

Perfectly happy in a world where there is no more Andrea and it's all her fault.

She'll make a second career out of telling her aunt she's fine when the world is crashing and burning. It's not a lie, really. She has a few things in her life that make her happy: her books, the budding writing talent that earns her praise from teachers and the editors at the school paper. If there are bad days, days where she closes her eyes and can feel herself falling or straining to reach for someone she loves and cannot save, those are just spokes in the wheel. They aren’t worth mentioning.

\--

 **1973  
**  
Bearing the guise of Lavinia is surprisingly easy -- no one has questioned her age, her tailored suit instead of a lab coat. She stumbles a few times when someone wants to ask her about her most recent article in _Virology Today_. She manages to sidestep those people with a smile and requests for more coffee.

Every night, she settles down to bed with a thick portfolio -- notes and copies of notes from Lavinia's work. Carbon copies of files she lifted from the locked drawer of her desk in her Canary Street office.

It’s not a lie, she reasons, if it’s for a story. It’s not lying, theft, breaking and entering, impersonating a government official, infiltrating a government agency or any of the other things Francis, the magazine’s attorney, told her. It’s work.

\--

**  
1976   
**

She doesn't really lie to Eldrad.

The power station has been evacuated. The place is perfectly safe for everyone who isn't a homicidal megalomaniac from another world that couldn't even be felled by two nuclear blasts.

Professor Watson, she feels, has earned his chance to take a shot at Eldrad. He’s a good man. He listened to the Doctor – which puts him well above some of the other “good men” they’ve encountered over the years. He's risking his life to destroy the potential evil that put countless people's lives at risk and could easily do so again.

And if she seems surprised when a bullet whizzes past her shoulder and nearly takes out the former dictator... well, that’s not a lie either.

The loud noise *is* quite shocking.

\--

**  
1977   
**

She's told the Brigadier that she's fine.

Six months after Harry Sullivan picked her up from the telephone box in Aberdeen, four months since her last article was published in _Metropolitan Magazine_. She sat through half of the secret psychiatric evaluation he arranged for her, cheerfully going along with the UNIT officer's idea of civilian small talk before excusing herself to the lady's room and disappearing down the corridor and off the base.

She's attended the half-dozen play-dates he set up for her with other, smarter, more capable women who are all the wiser for their travels and don't seem to have a problem holding a conversation without mentioning the Doctor (though Dodo in her drab hospital garb -- who asks whether Sarah would like to share her lime jelly -- is somewhat limited in her range of topics). She’s smiled graciously through each of them, though Jo’s fawning and Polly’s enthusiasm about the proclivities of British sailors was enough to make her sullen (and Harry blush).

She moves from Hillview Road to Hyde Park to be closer to the noise. The vibrations of the street at three o'clock in the morning sometimes remind her of the TARDIS, when the passerby don't break the illusion with a slammed car door or a lot of drunken invective.

She repaints her bedroom as close to the same shade of Venusian purple as she can get – which turns out to be a mix of three different colors, one of which she has to go across town to get. She sleeps later. She doesn't want to walk up the street to the chemist and have to buy two or three a packets of Jelly Babies before she collects the morning paper. She doesn't want to see people. Humans. Ordinary human beings with no idea of the breadth and depth and variety that exists in the universe. She’s forgotten how to be around them. Even the few that are aware like Harry and the Brigadier are beginning to grate on her with their concern, their sense of order and normality.

"There's someone I think you should meet,” the Brigadier says for the seventh time in as many days and she tamps down on the urge to scream at him. "He might make a good story for you. Human interest piece, perhaps."

"Who is he?" she asks.

"He's a professor of history."

"Yes, that's very newsworthy," she says dryly, ignoring the pinched corners around the Brigadier’s mouth.

"He specializes in Scottish history, specifically the first and second Jacobite risings. Has a very unorthodox manner of teaching. I think you might like him."

She tells him she'll go. She doesn't lie this time. Lying to the Brigadier is becoming cumbersome. She suspects he knows anyway.

\--

**  
2006   
**

Her arms are still cold when the TARDIS gives it's final vworp, disappearing into thin air. She can feel the coolness of his arms and hands, his cheek next to hers, the quiet hum of the TARDIS floor underneath her heels. After so many years, the mix of so many renewed sensations is overwhelming. Even the tinny, familiar voice of K9 makes her stomach drop and her eyes burn. She's surprised she can find her keys by the time she makes it to her car.

It's a seven-hour trip from London to Edinburgh on the M6; plenty of time to clear her mind.

The second-oldest person she has ever known is chopping wood in his backyard when she arrives. The man is nearly eighty years old and has the strength and determination most twenty-year-old men take for granted. He wears his kilt even as he works. She’s caught a few of his female students snooping near the cottage over the years, trying to get a peek. The attention always seems to surprise him. He's told his classes he's a widower. It's not far from the truth.

He knows she’s there even before he looks up. He’s not fond of cars ("great, rattlin’ noisy things" he calls them) and not many people are afforded the privilege of being able to drive up to his property.

"You're up here early,” he says, setting the axe down next to the chopping block. "’Wasn't expecting to see you until Thursday." His smile shifts as he gets closer. He hesitates for half a step, before finally closing the distance between them.

"Is anything wrong?"

She shakes her head, hugging her elbows.

"Sarah, are you all right?"

She shakes her head again, tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. Those strong arms are around her shoulders in seconds, driving the cold from her bones.

She can't lie to Jamie. He seems to understand.


End file.
